


The Rift Poisoned

by darkling59



Series: Annals of the Incomplete [31]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 00:49:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3549932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkling59/pseuds/darkling59
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>PC Gwen Cooper begins to display symptoms of being rift poisoned and when her problem gets out of hand, the Torchwood team hunts her down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rift Poisoned

It had been two months since Suzie’s betrayal. Two long months. Jack still wasn’t quite sure how they were managing without a working second in command. Sure, Owen was the next ranking officer but he was a full time CMO; it wouldn’t be fair to lump all of Suzie’s paperwork onto him.

 _It must be Ianto. I know I’ve been doing more than normal but it’s no where near as much as Suzie did,_ Jack thought.

The quiet, wonderful man that Jack was beginning to believe had devoted his entire life to Torchwood had been a godsend in the days immediately following Suzie’s…well, the incident.

“Jack! Oi!” Owen’s rapping on the window jerked Jack out of his thoughts. After aiming a suitably dirty look at the smaller man, he rolled down the window.

“What is it, Owen.” A statement, not a question.

“Tosh’s doing the tech and I’m checking the scene. We need someone to keep the bloody civilians out of the way.”

“Ianto?”

“Isn’t here. Remember?”

“Right. Alright, I’m coming.”

Owen nodded and moved back towards the crime scene to search for forensic evidence. Not the sort the regular police would check for; he was tromping all over that; but anything that might point to extraterrestrial or rift activity.

Jack got out of the car and shook out his coat, checking his holster and taking a moment to absorb the controlled confusion outside. The police were there, glaring daggers at his team as always but also doing a reasonably good job at keeping two dozen or so onlookers back. There were five or six tourists beginning to edge around the cops, obviously drawn by curiosity to see what there was to see. All were holding cameras and looking far more eager than they would have had they known what they were getting closer to.

Deciding on his target, Jack focused his mind and stepped forward.

* * *

 

Crowd dispersed and tourists duly dealt with, Jack relaxed against the side of the SUV in the sun. Tosh was analyzing her information in the car and Owen was wrapping up his tools and samples.

That was when Jack felt it.

A telepathic touch in his mind…no, that wasn’t quite right. A curious presence somewhere nearby focusing so intently on him that it might as well have been probing his mind. Pretending to gaze at the clouds, Jack surreptitiously scanned the few people left in the crowd. No one was looking at him, let alone focusing enough to put him on edge.

Next he scanned the street, looking for anyone acting oddly or distracted. Still no one. The odds were rising in favor of a non-human influence or presence.

Perturbed, he stopped pretending to direct his gaze elsewhere and instead scrutinized the street and its inhabitants. He knew there was someone there so why couldn’t he…there!

In an alleyway far to the left, a figure was standing just off the sidewalk, watching him with intense concentration. It appeared to be a young woman with dark hair, at about average height and build, with a friendly face made serious by her focus. What really made Jack notice her were her eyes; they were light colored, hazel or green, and extremely expressive. He could read her emotions from twenty feet away with little effort.

Those eyes of hers also gave her an amusingly accurate deer-in-headlights look the moment she realized he was returning her stare.

She flushed and seemed embarrassed for a moment. Jack expected her to look away but at the last second she crossed her arms and her expression became stubborn. He couldn’t stop the smirk from blossoming on is face and was just about to head over to introduce himself when-.

“Jack!”

“What?” Startled, he tore his eyes from the strange woman to focus on an irate looking Owen.

“Oh nothing. I just thought we might like to leave sometime today.”

Jack scowled and turned back to the street, only to find his observer gone. She must have run off as soon as he looked away for her to be missing after so little time.

Making a mental note to have Tosh check her out later, Jack got back in the SUV and drove his team back to the Hub.

* * *

 

 _Within a day, the verdict from the crime scene was back: Rift Poisoning. The interdimensional energy had overloaded the victim's mind and caused a stroke...and an explosion large enough to take out the entire house._ _Within the next three days, five more victims appeared. In the furor, Jack forgot to have Tosh look into the telepathic stranger._ _A week later, two of the poisoned have died explosively, two have gone insane and tried to kill others before falling into comas (they were expected to die any day) and four more Poisoned had been identified when their burgeoning psychic powers backfired on over three dozen people around them. Two were hospitalized, one committed suicide at the beginning of the infection, and the fourth is a woman named Gwen Cooper who refused to answer their calls._

 

* * *

 

Ianto rapped on the door of a quaint little flat, any thoughts he had about the situation carefully hidden behind his emotionless mask.

When a young woman with short dark hair opened the door looking tired and sleep rumpled, he felt fairly confident in assuming her identity.

“Miss Cooper?”

Therefore he was monumentally surprised when the woman scowled and slammed the door in his face.

He was still trying to process what exactly had just happened when the door reopened a few centimeters to reveal the blinking eyes and soft face of a man he recognized from Gwen Cooper’s file: Rhys Williams.

Mr. Williams explained that he and Gwen were no longer together and that Ianto should contact her cell phone number if he was looking for her. She was probably still in Cardiff but didn’t have a new residence yet so Rhys could not give him a permanent contact number.

Such was the information the teaboy related back to base when he reached the car.

* * *

 

Jack had thought long and hard on the information he had gained from Ianto’s investigations and Tosh’s research. By all accounts, Gwen Cooper (who was apparently his mystery stalker from two weeks ago - if only he'd stopped to talk to her then!) had been a normal woman in a normal job as a police constable up until about seven months ago. At that point she had resigned and dropped off the map for 27 days after which she got a job assisting at an animal clinic ten minutes from her flat. Her life settled into a new routine and continued in that vein for a little over six and a half months.

That changed a week ago.

Seven days ago she had broken up with her boyfriend on the count that ‘he was always thinking about other women’. Five days ago she had quit her job in tears after a badly injured dog passed away in her care. Four days ago was the last time she had been seen near her apartment. Two days ago was the last time she had been seen period.

All of the occurrences happened in perfect conjunction with the hiccups from the rift and the deterioration of the rift-poisoned.

Jack’s instincts were screaming that she was the last Poisoned and that it was imperative he find her soon. If he didn’t…well, he didn’t know what would happen but it wouldn’t be good for any of them. Gwen Cooper definitely wouldn't survive, and it was quite possible she'd take a lot of people with her when she died.

* * *

 

_In the end, it wasn't so difficult. As soon as the mini explosions started, she went to ground in a small park inside the city. By then it was a race against the clock; the team surrounded the area and Jack went in alone._

* * *

 

“Breathtaking view, isn’t it?”

Gwen did not turn around when a man’s voice sounded from behind her. It was the stranger from the crime scene she’d seen a while back. It felt like a lifetime ago… so much had happened since then. He was as strange now as he had been then but she dared not try to figure out anything more, not now.

Not while she was cold, wet, and scared of her own mind.

“Stay back.” Her voice was a whisper, torn away by the wind.

It went unheeded; the crunch of his boots on gravel approached until he was standing, then sitting next to her on the bench. She did not look up.

“Grey skies, dark streets, smog…what’s not to like?”

Distantly amused, Gwen’s eyes flickered to his then back down. She could feel his tension but not the reason for it and it was beginning to make her tense.

“Who are you?”

“Me? Oh, just your every day kind of guy.”

She let out a snort of derision before she could stop herself. “Are you saying you’re normal?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” this time she met his eyes fully and did not back away.

“Because you’re not.”

“And how would you know that?”

She couldn’t answer that question. It was impossible. But then again so was her current situation. So was he.

“I don’t know. Does that make sense? I mean…I know it but I don’t know how I know it.”

She expected to see disbelief, scorn, or at least confusion on his face but to her surprise he didn’t even blink. If anything, he seemed understanding.

“What do you know?”

“You…you’re empty. You feel like you’re there but not all at once. I mean, your mind is there but it doesn’t move, not like normal, it’s always the same.” She watched his expression close more and more as she continued which scared her enough to make her keep going, hoping she’d hit on something that made sense. “Most people think one way, towards the future, and their mind goes forward like that. But for you it’s like the future is now or like you’re both there and here at the same time.”

He didn’t respond so she glanced away, somewhat embarrassed.

“I-I should go…”

“Where?”

“I don’t think that’s really of your business.” She stood, ready to go. It was a pity actually; this place had been perfect in its seclusion and had actually managed to ease he headache. She hadn’t heard a single thought since discovering it.

Mentally reviewing her choices, she almost missed it when his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. The accompanying sharp needle sting on her arm brought her up short.

“Ms. Cooper…”

How did he…? She’d never told him that! She panicked, jerking away from him and starting to run. He didn’t follow but after a few steps her legs began to wobble, forcing her to a walk, then to her knees. Realization struck as he approached her from behind and crouched down to place a comforting hand on her back.

“You…drugged me.”

“Just relax.”

She watched him as her vision began to swim and brown, stubbornly refusing to give in to unconsciousness even though she knew it was unavoidable.

“Please Gwen, calm down. I promise I won’t hurt you.”

“Pro-missss…?”

“Yes. I promise. Trust me.”

And for some reason, God help her, she did trust him. After one last, long glance, she finally allowed herself to surrender to the darkness.

* * *

_With the last of the Rift-poisoned neutralized, Cardiff was safe once again._

**Author's Note:**

> ...It's been too long since I wrote this one. I'm honestly not sure what I was thinking or what my inspiration was.


End file.
